Latest / Mini Scroll / MINI TECH SCROLL: US TikTok deal breakdown, AI actress prompts outrage + Snapchat charges for Memories storage

Transcript

MINI TECH SCROLL: US TikTok deal breakdown, AI actress prompts outrage + Snapchat charges for Memories storage · Mini Scroll

• 0:00
  This episode of Mini Tech Scroll is brought to you by Blackbird,
• 0:03
  a venture capital firm investing in Aussie and Kiwi startups.
• 0:06
  From the very beginning, Blackbird invests in all kinds
• 0:09
  of technology. So if you have a big idea but
• 0:11
  need to raise investment to turn it into reality, learn more and
• 0:14
  connect with the Blackbird team through the link in our show
• 0:17
  notes. Hey everyone, and welcome to
• 0:19
  Mini Scroll, the daily Internet culture podcast bring you the
• 0:22
  biggest stories from social media, the creator economy and
• 0:25
  the digital space. Every Monday through Thursdays
• 0:28
  and sometimes Fridays. My name is Annabelle Well and
• 0:30
  I'm your Wednesday Mini Tech Scroll host and also the deputy
• 0:33
  editor of the youth digital media brand Centennial World.
• 0:36
  Welcome back to Mini Tech Scroll.
• 0:39
  I am back after I had a week off last week and I am excited
• 0:43
  because we have a lot to talk about.
• 0:46
  I do want to note though that like a couple of weeks ago, this
• 0:49
  episode is actually being pre recorded.
• 0:51
  So it was recorded yesterday for you.
• 0:54
  If you are watching this on the day it was uploaded, usually we
• 0:58
  prepare, record, edit, and upload all on the same day.
• 1:02
  That is not the case of this week clearly, but I think we
• 1:05
  will be back to our regular schedule next week.
• 1:07
  So the reason I just wanted to flag this is because if
• 1:10
  anything, exciting, relevant, monumental breaks overnight and
• 1:15
  we don't cover it. That is why I just like to do a
• 1:17
  little bit of a preface if I'm prerecorded, Please remember to
• 1:21
  rate, review and subscribe and star rate US on Spotify
• 1:24
  specifically. Lauren is really pushing you
• 1:27
  guys to help us get to 1000 and you guys are really showing up
• 1:31
  so that is much appreciated. We also have a buy me a coffee
• 1:34
  link in the description if you are so inclined.
• 1:37
  But yes, let's get in to the content.
• 1:40
  As Lauren promised you last week.
• 1:42
  I fear I am coming to you today for my 85th update on the TikTok
• 1:47
  ban in the United States. Obviously I haven't covered this
• 1:50
  85 times, but that is what it feels like.
• 1:52
  I think this is going to be the bulk of the episode.
• 1:55
  So if you are sick of the TikTok ban, I am sorry.
• 1:58
  Come back next week or skip to the next stories.
• 2:01
  I do have a love hate relationship with this topic.
• 2:03
  I do find it so interesting, but I feel like we've just been
• 2:06
  talking about it for so long at this point.
• 2:09
  It's honestly just comical how frequently I have to bring this
• 2:13
  up. But yes, this might be one of
• 2:16
  our final updates on this saga. If you have somehow not caught
• 2:20
  one of my 1000 episodes I have covered the TikTok ban in.
• 2:24
  I will give you a quick summary, which I'm sure regular listeners
• 2:27
  of mini Tech Scroll could quite literally recite with me at this
• 2:31
  point, but here we go Last year, legislation passed in the United
• 2:35
  States that ban TikTok from operating in the US unless a
• 2:38
  deal was struck for AUS approved buyer to purchase the app and
• 2:42
  Byte Dance, which is Tik Tok's Chinese owned parent company,
• 2:45
  divested the issue around Byte dance owning TikTok was framed
• 2:49
  as a national security issue with legislators concerned about
• 2:53
  China's collection of US user data, its access to it and also
• 2:57
  how it would use it. There were also concerns about
• 3:00
  the powerful nature of the algorithm and the dissemination
• 3:03
  of information when it came to the algorithm.
• 3:06
  Granted, the fears around TikTok have been going on for like 5
• 3:09
  years now, started back in 2020 in Trump's first term.
• 3:13
  But I guess between then and now he has decided that he likes the
• 3:17
  platform, probably because arguably it helped him win the
• 3:20
  election. But that's the conversation for
• 3:21
  another time and one that we've also covered.
• 3:23
  But when Trump came in to office at the beginning of this term,
• 3:27
  he was facing the ban's deadline for a deal to be struck with
• 3:31
  Byte Dance. And obviously that led to TikTok
• 3:34
  going offline for I think it was like 12 hours or something and
• 3:37
  ended up being taken down off app stores.
• 3:40
  Obviously, as we all know by this point, Trump ended up
• 3:42
  extending the deadline of the ban like 4 times, which honestly
• 3:45
  was legally questionable because he was using executive powers to
• 3:48
  do so. And this ban had passed through
• 3:50
  Congress. But anyway, I guess it doesn't
• 3:52
  matter now if a deal is going through.
• 3:54
  So the last time I reported on this was basically to say that
• 3:58
  US and China had come up with a framework to keep TikTok
• 4:00
  operating in the United States. This was, I think 2 weeks ago
• 4:03
  now. There haven't been much revealed
• 4:05
  about what this would look like, but there are some more updates
• 4:08
  that we should cover. The biggest news that has come
• 4:11
  out about all this since we covered it last was that Trump
• 4:15
  signed an executive order to transfer TikTok to US owners and
• 4:19
  this went down last Thursday. The quote saving TikTok while
• 4:22
  protecting national security executive order outlines the
• 4:25
  deal and there are four key points to take away from it.
• 4:29
  The first is that TikTok will be quote, majority owned and
• 4:32
  controlled by United States persons whereby Dance will quote
• 4:36
  own less than 20% of the entity with the remainder being held by
• 4:40
  certain investors, brackets, investor parties.
• 4:43
  And with this, there will also be a new board of directors,
• 4:45
  which we'll talk about a little bit more later.
• 4:47
  The next point is on the algorithm, which has obviously
• 4:51
  been the major sticking point of striking a deal with China
• 4:54
  because this is not something that Bite Dance necessarily
• 4:56
  wants to sell. But as far as the algorithm
• 4:59
  goes, the executive order says, quote, the divestiture puts the
• 5:02
  operation of the algorithm and code as well as content
• 5:05
  moderation decisions under the control of the new joint
• 5:08
  venture. Obviously, that is somewhat
• 5:10
  vague and we'll get into the reporting and expectations of
• 5:14
  what this looks like a little bit later.
• 5:16
  The next point is that the divestiture will ensure that
• 5:19
  sensitive data from US users will remain in American hands.
• 5:22
  And lastly, the divestiture will allow for monitoring of software
• 5:27
  updates, algorithms and data flows by US security partners.
• 5:30
  There is obviously just so much to unpack here and I will try my
• 5:34
  best to give it to you in a succinct and interesting manner.
• 5:38
  But let's first start with the group of American investors and
• 5:42
  what that looks like. So this group is led by the
• 5:45
  software company Oracle. And for reference, Oracle Cloud
• 5:48
  servers have already been storing US TikTok data since
• 5:51
  2020 at this point. But the interesting and maybe a
• 5:55
  little bit concerning aspect of Oracle leading the investment is
• 5:59
  that Larry Ellison is the Co founder and Larry Ellison is a
• 6:03
  very close ally to Trump. For reference, Ellison hosted
• 6:07
  fundraisers for Trump in 2020 and executives at Oracle have
• 6:10
  been involved in Trump's political team or surroundings
• 6:14
  for almost his whole political career at this point.
• 6:16
  If you want to know more about Larry Ellison's career and his
• 6:20
  political views, the VAGE published an interesting piece
• 6:22
  about him and his trajectory. If you're interested, I have
• 6:25
  linked it in the description along with many other sources
• 6:28
  this week that I've read, so hope you enjoyed that.
• 6:30
  But journalists, experts, and TikTok users have flagged how
• 6:34
  concerned they are over what Larry Ellison's and Oracle's
• 6:37
  involvement means for the future of TikTok and free speech.
• 6:41
  But this is a reoccurring issue, so stay tuned.
• 6:43
  So while Oracle is leading the consortium, there are of course
• 6:47
  other investors and there have been a couple different names
• 6:50
  and companies mentioned across the current report, including
• 6:54
  the private equity company Silver Lake, a venture capital
• 6:57
  firm Anderson Horowitz, media mogul Rupert Maddock, as well as
• 7:01
  Abu Dhabi's tech investment fund MGX.
• 7:04
  But not all have been confirmed at the time of recording.
• 7:06
  I'm sure more will be coming out.
• 7:08
  Maybe you even know more than me by this point.
• 7:10
  I've seen some takes that MGX's stake is very interesting
• 7:14
  because that is obviously not AUS based company, but
• 7:17
  apparently that is fine in this context I guess.
• 7:20
  Having said that though, one thing that is fairly consistent
• 7:23
  across the investors or the rumoured investors is that they
• 7:26
  are all allies of Trump's, which has only reinforced the concerns
• 7:30
  about TikTok going quote UN quote, full MAGA or down the
• 7:33
  MAGA pipeline. But the prospect of this depends
• 7:37
  on how the algorithm will operate.
• 7:39
  And there are a lot of remaining questions around the control
• 7:42
  that investors will have over the information and content that
• 7:45
  will be prioritized in this new form of TikTok.
• 7:49
  It currently looks like US investors will be able to take
• 7:52
  charge of a license copied of the app's recommendation
• 7:55
  algorithm, and the algorithm will then have to be retrained.
• 7:59
  So it seems it's definitely quite early to say for sure what
• 8:04
  retraining the algorithm will even look like, although it's
• 8:07
  probably safe to say that it will be similar to how it exists
• 8:10
  now with the goal of keeping users on the platform.
• 8:13
  There's also a likelihood that there will be some political
• 8:16
  posturing slash agenda pushing potentially happening within
• 8:19
  this new form of the algorithm. At least that is what generally
• 8:23
  experts and TikTok users are expecting.
• 8:25
  And obviously this comes down to the fact that many of the
• 8:28
  investors are in fact allies of Trump.
• 8:30
  And also, this isn't something that is necessarily new to the
• 8:33
  discussion around TikTok and the algorithm.
• 8:36
  This year, we've seen a lot of conversation around the types of
• 8:38
  political content that TikTok pushes out, especially in
• 8:41
  relation to Gaza, Israel, and Palestine more broadly.
• 8:44
  I also want to say, correct me if I'm wrong, but I do think
• 8:47
  it's quite interesting how the algorithm is being licensed to
• 8:51
  the USI have seen reports that Byte Dance will be actually
• 8:54
  receiving a licensing fee. As reported by Bloomberg quote,
• 8:57
  Tik Tok's Chinese parent company will likely get about half of
• 9:01
  the profit from the platform's US operation even after it sells
• 9:04
  majority ownership to American investors as part of a deal
• 9:07
  orchestrated by President Donald Trump, according to people
• 9:10
  familiar with the matter. By Dance is expected to receive
• 9:13
  a licensing fee on all the revenue generated from making
• 9:16
  its algorithm available to the US operating entity, as well as
• 9:19
  a share of the profit in proportion to its equity stake,
• 9:22
  said the people. From so much of the reporting,
• 9:24
  it seems like China still owns the algorithm and I wonder if
• 9:28
  that will be enough to satisfy the requirements of the original
• 9:32
  legislation. I have seen a take from the New
• 9:34
  York Times that claimed that if the United States truly wanted
• 9:38
  to manage propaganda on apps like TikTok, quote, lawmakers
• 9:42
  should require TikTok and beyond it all social media platforms to
• 9:45
  publish live, searchable databases of their posts, which
• 9:49
  researchers, journalists and lawmakers can use to track
• 9:51
  online discourse. And I think that is a very
• 9:54
  interesting point, especially with the new concerns around the
• 9:58
  consortium of investors and their political agenda.
• 10:01
  If one is going to be pushed, this suggestion would in theory
• 10:05
  make it easier to to track what is being pushed out and what
• 10:08
  people online are talking about. OK, now that we've covered the
• 10:12
  logistics, I guess let's talk about what this means for the
• 10:17
  future of TikTok. There are so many questions
• 10:20
  about what this deal will look like, so it is hard to make any
• 10:24
  predictions. Also, I do think things will
• 10:27
  likely change between now and when everything has settled, but
• 10:30
  based on what we know. I've seen some interesting takes
• 10:33
  and questions and I have a lot of thoughts, so bear with me as
• 10:36
  we get through them. The first is the idea that this
• 10:39
  might be the beginning of the end of TikTok, which is
• 10:42
  something I could potentially see being the case with the deal
• 10:45
  looking how it is right now, it's likely that the user
• 10:48
  experience will change and it may not all be positive.
• 10:51
  The algorithm is definitely what keeps all of us on TikTok, and
• 10:55
  that is going to change because it has to be retrained.
• 10:59
  The algorithm as it is now is something that has already
• 11:02
  proven to be quite difficult to replicate.
• 11:05
  We have seen that with the rise of other short form video feeds
• 11:07
  on other platforms, none of them are doing the same or maybe feel
• 11:12
  as personalized as TikTok, so I think it's fair to say that many
• 11:15
  users have their doubts about how the algorithm will perform
• 11:18
  after being retrained. On the flip side though, I do
• 11:22
  think it's worth noting that even though no short form video
• 11:25
  feed has succeeded in the same way as TikTok, this isn't 2020
• 11:29
  where TikTok is the only option. This might make users more
• 11:33
  willing to leave the app and turn to places like Reels.
• 11:35
  And honestly, obviously Reels has an insane culture, which I
• 11:39
  enjoy. Like I kind of like the brain
• 11:41
  rot and I get way more brain rot on Reels than I do on TikTok.
• 11:45
  In a similar vein to this, I actually had a really
• 11:47
  interesting take on The Verge cast, which is the podcast by
• 11:51
  The Verge where the host was speculating whether TikTok is on
• 11:54
  the same trajectory as Myspace. Myspaces downfall actually
• 11:58
  started right after News Corp acquired the platform, which is
• 12:02
  obviously owned by the Murdoch family.
• 12:05
  So I don't know if that's necessarily really a good sign
• 12:07
  since Rupert Murdoch is allegedly part of this
• 12:09
  consortium. To briefly summarize it for you,
• 12:12
  when Murdoch took over Myspace, the whole culture of the
• 12:15
  platform changed, and not in a good way.
• 12:17
  In the years since, Murdoch has discussed the failure of Myspace
• 12:21
  and actually placed the blame on himself.
• 12:23
  If you want to learn more about the rise and fall of Myspace, we
• 12:27
  actually did a whole platform deep dive into it.
• 12:29
  And it's really interesting to learn about the origins of these
• 12:32
  platforms, especially Myspace, because I was never on Myspace.
• 12:35
  It was a little bit before my time, but it was definitely an
• 12:38
  iconic part of Internet history. And lastly, on this potentially
• 12:42
  being the beginning of the end of TikTok, I don't think we can
• 12:45
  separate this with everything that has gone on in the US media
• 12:48
  landscape as of late, especially with the Skydance and Paramount
• 12:52
  merger and the fact that David Ellison, who is Larry Ellison's
• 12:55
  son, is now the CEO and chairman.
• 12:58
  So with conservative figures creeping into different parts of
• 13:02
  the media landscape, that might turn various TikTok users off
• 13:07
  the app. Another aspect that I think is
• 13:09
  important to discuss here is that there's also a lot of
• 13:11
  questions around TikTok, whether it will be getting its own app
• 13:15
  and whether US users will be able to see international
• 13:17
  content. Obviously, we reported, I want
• 13:20
  to say like a month ago or so on the speculation around the US
• 13:24
  getting its own separate TikTok app.
• 13:26
  I do wonder how this will play for US TikTok users if you're
• 13:30
  based in the USI think I asked this last time, but considering
• 13:33
  we know more about the deal, would you even download a new
• 13:37
  app? I feel like there definitely is
• 13:38
  an obstacle here to getting people to actually download a
• 13:41
  new app. And As for whether international
• 13:43
  content will still be available in this new era of TikTok, from
• 13:47
  the reporting I've seen, it looks like that will be the
• 13:50
  case. But I have seen reports that the
• 13:52
  algorithm will be trained based on US user data, so that might
• 13:56
  be a problem for international creators and brands that rely on
• 14:00
  US TikTok users potentially. OK, I think I just blacked out
• 14:03
  while talking about all of that. If that brings us to the end of
• 14:07
  the US TikTok ban coverage for this week, maybe forever.
• 14:11
  I have my doubts though, but hopefully that was comprehensive
• 14:14
  enough. Also succinct enough.
• 14:16
  I also do feel like that was long to be honest, but hopefully
• 14:19
  I got my point across. Let's move on.
• 14:21
  I do have two more quick stories for the rest of the episode and
• 14:24
  the first one we have to talk about is this AI actress that
• 14:27
  the industry is fighting over. The actress's name is Tilly
• 14:31
  Norwood and comes from an AI talent studio, which is a spin
• 14:34
  off of Particle 6. She reportedly made her debut at
• 14:38
  the Zurich Film Festival. Tilly appears as a young girl,
• 14:42
  probably a teenager or at most her early 20s.
• 14:45
  She has brown hair and is conventionally pretty.
• 14:48
  She also seemingly has an English accent when she speaks.
• 14:51
  She has already appeared in some projects led by Particle 6, with
• 14:55
  one being a comedy sketch called AI Commissioner.
• 14:58
  Since her reveal, though, the founder and CEO of Particle 6,
• 15:02
  Elaine van der Velden, has been at the center of controversy.
• 15:07
  And fair enough, because many social media users and people in
• 15:11
  the industry are upset of the prospect of an AI actress taking
• 15:15
  away roles from real people, which is obviously something
• 15:18
  that we have discussed here at length on the podcast in
• 15:21
  relation to actresses, actors, and models.
• 15:24
  This is also something that the SAG after strike was trying to
• 15:27
  protect actors from. And a number of celebrities have
• 15:30
  weighed in, expressing their discontent about Tilly, ranging
• 15:33
  from Lucas Gage to Toni Collette.
• 15:35
  This is ultimately prompted van der Velden to respond to the
• 15:39
  backlash. I'll read you a part of the
• 15:41
  statement now, and this was posted on Instagram.
• 15:44
  Quote to those who have expressed anger over the
• 15:46
  creation of our AI character. She is not a replacement for a
• 15:49
  human being, but a creative work, a piece of art.
• 15:52
  Like many forms of art before her, she sparks conversation and
• 15:55
  that in itself shows the power of creativity.
• 15:57
  I see AI not as a replacement for people, but as a new tool, a
• 16:01
  new paintbrush. Just as animation, puppetry, or
• 16:04
  CGI opened fresh possibilities without taking away from live
• 16:07
  acting, AI offers another way to imagine and build stories.
• 16:11
  I'm an actor myself and nothing, certainly not an AI character,
• 16:15
  can take away the craft or joy of human performance.
• 16:18
  Even though I definitely agree that there is a difference
• 16:21
  between an AI actress and a human actress, this is
• 16:25
  concerning because even if AI is seen as separate to human
• 16:28
  actors, from a financial perspective, I don't know if the
• 16:32
  industry will ever reject AI actors fully.
• 16:35
  At the end of the day, it's cheaper and if they care about
• 16:37
  the bottom line, that is definitely something they would
• 16:39
  be thinking about. So I can totally see how this is
• 16:42
  a concern and it's interesting to see where the entertainment
• 16:46
  industry might be heading. And it isn't just a cross film.
• 16:49
  I saw a report recently actually that there is a world fast AI
• 16:54
  record label. So it might just be something
• 16:57
  that we are seeing across the board.
• 16:59
  And no matter the backlash from within specific industries
• 17:02
  within entertainment might not really do anything to stop this
• 17:05
  progress. Finally, my last story for today
• 17:08
  is a platform update about Snapchat.
• 17:11
  I will say sometimes I find platform updates kind of boring
• 17:14
  but I wanted to cover this story because it's something that is
• 17:17
  affecting me and I I thought it might affect some of you guys,
• 17:21
  but Snapchat will be soon introducing memory storage
• 17:25
  plans. Memories on Snapchat is a major
• 17:28
  feature on the app and it started in 2016 and according to
• 17:31
  a Snapchat blog, users have saved more than one trillion
• 17:34
  memories since then. I have been saving memories on
• 17:37
  Snapchat since the time that it came out.
• 17:40
  I literally can remember when Snapchat memories dropped.
• 17:43
  I'm sure many of you can as well, but Snapchat will now be
• 17:47
  asking users to pay if they have more than 5 gig gigabytes of
• 17:49
  memories stored on the app, according to the blog post
• 17:52
  quote. We want to make sure that our
• 17:53
  community can continue to store all of their memories over the
• 17:56
  long time, so we are introducing new memory storage plans to
• 18:00
  support Snapchatters with more than 5 gigabytes of memories.
• 18:03
  For the vast majority of Snapchatters who have less than
• 18:06
  5 gigabytes of memories, nothing will change.
• 18:08
  For Snapchatters with more than 5 gigabytes of memories, meaning
• 18:11
  thousands of snaps, we are rolling out new options to
• 18:14
  upgrade and increase storage. The introductory memories
• 18:17
  storage plans offer 100 GB, 250 GB with Snapchat Plus, or five
• 18:23
  terabytes with Snapchat Platinum.
• 18:25
  The blog post also noted that the platform will provide 12
• 18:28
  months of temporary memory storage for those over the five
• 18:31
  GB storage limit. Unfortunately, I think I am over
• 18:35
  the five GB storage limit because when I used to have a
• 18:38
  phone that had limited storage space, I would save everything
• 18:42
  on Snapchat. Obviously I understand in theory
• 18:44
  why Snapchat is making this move because it clearly incentivizes
• 18:48
  users to pay for Snapchat Plus, which has been around since
• 18:52
  2022, but it is just more revenue for the company.
• 18:55
  At the same time, I can totally see why users are upset.
• 18:58
  Going from getting a service for free to having to pay for it is
• 19:02
  not ideal, especially dealing with the high cost of living all
• 19:05
  around the world. But this is especially upsetting
• 19:08
  when it comes to personal content like Memories.
• 19:10
  Many users are probably already paying for iCloud Google Drive,
• 19:14
  so I'm curious how many people would want to add Memories onto
• 19:18
  that as well. Well, from my research though,
• 19:20
  there are ways to mass export memories, but I believe it is
• 19:24
  only like 100 memories at a time.
• 19:26
  Or you can download a compressed file of your memories.
• 19:29
  But yes, I just thought I would share this update because it is
• 19:32
  something that might affect you or maybe you just didn't use
• 19:36
  Snapchat like a camera roll like I did.
• 19:37
  Well, that is everything from mini text scroll for today.
• 19:40
  I hope you guys enjoyed. Lauren will speak to you
• 19:43
  tomorrow and I will be back next week.
• 19:46
  Thanks for listening. Bye.